George Wood (New Zealand)

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George Sydney Wood CNZM is a former Mayor of North Shore City, New Zealand’s fourth largest city. He was the first North Shore Mayor to be elected for a third term since the city was formed in 1989. Andrew Williams replaced him as Mayor in the 2007 New Zealand local body elections. George Wood was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to local body affairs in the New Year Honours 2008.

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[edit] Personal life

George Wood was born in Birkenhead of the North Shore, in Auckland. He was educated at Birkenhead Primary, Northcote Intermediate and Northcote College. Wood has been married to Myra Wood for 35 years. He has three adult children and three grandchildren. George also lives in Forest Hill, on the Shore. He is a keen supporter of North Harbour sports teams, enjoys spending time with his family and helping community groups. He is also a Full-Time Member of Takapuna Rotary.

Wood stood as an independent mayoralty candidate in the 2007 North Shore City elections on a platform of continuing to develop North Shore City as a city with high standard infrastructure and services to the city's 220,000 citizens, but was defeated.

In April of 2007 he gained notoriety by caving in to pressure from Chinese officials not to attend an international cultural show by Divine Performing Arts which contains scenes depicting the oppression of people who practice the Falun Gong spiritual system.

Divine Performing Arts are devoted to recreating the original and divine cultures of humankind, much of which was destroyed during the 1960s Cultural Revolution.

The show portrays dances and narratives that span thousands of years of culture from China, Tibet and Mongolia, and also incorporates scenes from China's most recent history - namely the repression

He was planning to attend the show with his wife, but after a phone call from the Chinese Consular General's office he backed out, and was quoted as saying

“I don't want to get involved in internal People's Republic of China politics but I also want to maintain a reasonable relationship with the People's Republic of China. They said that [the show] was involved in Falun Gong, they indicated Falun Gong, and I don't know what the true impact of that is, but it obviously has some concerns for them.

I had indicated that I probably would go to the show, but I'm not going to cause an international kerfuffle by going to something that I don't know anything about. I don't know anything about the Falun Gong or whatever it means. I am a mayor of a city not an international diplomat and I haven't really got the time to analyze the thing out,” [1] Mr Wood said.

[edit] Pre-council

Before being elected Mayor for the first time in October 1998, George worked for the New Zealand Police, primarily as a crime investigations manager. As a Police investigator, he worked on many inquiries and served at various times in Auckland, Rotorua and Palmerston North. In his final years of service (1995-98), he was the manager of Police services within North Shore City. The former Mayor was previoulsy a Justice of the Peace by virtue of holding the mayoralty.

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[edit] References

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